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November 2015

Twelve months ago, there was virtually no returning experience, there were questions everywhere and expectations were extremely low.

Boy, what a difference a year makes.

Today, Middleton’s boys basketball team is one of the more veteran-laden bunches around. And after a surprising campaign that saw the Cardinals finish third in the ultra-competitive Big Eight Conference, hopes are extremely high for the 2015-’16 season.

Middleton, which went 17-7 overall last year and 13-5 in the league, begins its season Dec. 3 at Janesville Parker.

“We are quite ahead offensively from where we were at the same point last year,” Middleton 10th year coach Kevin Bavery said. “We do have the ability to turn defense into offense and to score in a variety of ways. And we seem a lot more aggressive — in the press, on the boards, and in attacking the glass.

What they lack in stature they more than make up for with speed, skill and stamina.

Middleton’s girls basketball team might be one of the smallest around this season. The Cardinals could also be one of the best.

“We could play five guards at times,” said Middleton coach Jeff Kind, whose team opened the season Tuesday against Stoughton. “And that’s fine. The goals still won’t change.”

With good reason.

Kind has built one of the state’s top programs and has taken the Cardinals to state eight times since 2001 and nine times overall. Last year, Middleton reached the state semifinals before losing in overtime to eventual champion DSHA.

The Cardinals return several key cogs from last year’s team that went 22-5 overall and 15-3 in the Big Eight Conference. But most of Middleton’s returnees are guards, and the roster lacks great size, meaning Kind & Co. will play a lot of small ball.

An abundance of depth carried Middleton’s girls’ swimming and diving team to big things throughout 2015, including a perfect Big Eight Conference mark and a sectional title.

Last Saturday, the Cardinals rode their depth all the way to a second-place finish at the WIAA Division 1 state swimming and diving championships at the UW Natatorium.

Hartland Arrowhead won the meet with 301 points, while Middleton was a distant second at 211. Cedarburg (206), Verona/Mount Horeb (200) and Madison Memorial (165.50) rounded out the top five.

“All season long the team has consistently done everything they said they were going to do and they came in here with an agenda to get second,” Middleton coach Lauren Cabalka said. “We were seeded third coming in, and, from our diver down to that (last) relay, we did exactly what we needed to do.”

A blood-caked shoe sits in a pool of viscous crimson, resting at the foot of an old metal locker. Several undead men in baseball uniforms mill about, waiting for their scenes. A few conspicuously alive people gather around a clipboard, reviewing their plans for the night of filming as darkness falls upon the Bowling Green athletic fields in the City of Middleton.

Filming on “Field of Screams,” a giddily campy horror short film, was well underway, and it transformed a local athletic complex into the stuff of midnight movie madness. The premise is simple: “A woman tries to sell the baseball field she inherited from her parents at a young age, but the team isn’t ready to let it, or her, go…”

“The idea came from the location,” explains director Natalie Pohorski. “While I grew up in Middleton, I had never been to Bowling Green fields so when I showed up to a friend’s softball game last fall, I couldn’t believe this amazing filming location was right in my backyard.”

Middleton’s boys volleyball coach has no problem trying new things — no matter what point of the season his team is at.

But even for White, last Thursday was unique.

With Middleton just minutes away from its WIAA sectional final against Waukesha South, White told his team he was making some changes to account for Blackshirts dynamic outside hitter Tristan Steckl. The move worked like a charm and the Cardinals rolled to a 25-16, 25-18, 25-12 win over South in a match held at Madison Memorial High School.

Middleton earned a third straight trip to state and its eighth since 2002. The Cardinals now face New Berlin United in a state quarterfinal game Friday at 3 p.m. at Wisconsin Lutheran College.

“Never gets old,” Middleton coach Ben White said of going to state. “I’m very proud of this team for how much they have grown this season.

And the Cardinals reaped the benefits off the field, as well, when it came time for postseason honors.

Middleton, the outright Big Eight Conference champion, had 17 players named all-league. That was more than any other school in the conference.

Middleton had 10 players named first-team all-conference, two were named second-team and five earned honorable-mention all-conference honors.

Junior safety Joe Ludwig led Middleton’s first-team honorees and was named the Big Eight’s Defensive Back of the Year. Senior Cody Markel was the only player in the league named first-team all-conference at two positions, earning honors at both tight end and defensive end.